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Who were/are the Bulgars?

I've been lurking for a while and I'm very interested in the origin of my people. I just recently discovered population genetics and much is still incomprehensible to me, I hope this thread gains some traction so more informed people can give out some useful knowledge. Big political interests for the past century and a half have never had a problem with corrupting historical facts, as long as they fit the narratives of the geostrategic situations of the day. The study of genetics seems to be mostly driven by amateur researchers from all over the world so I am hopeful that a collective endeavour such as this would be more resistant to corruption and bastardization.
I don't know where to start, so here's some basic data I got from wikipedia:

(I2a) is presented at levels 21.9%. I2a is recorded to be the dominant haplogroup in the former Sofia-city, Sofia, Plovdiv and Varna province between 23-33%, dropping under 10% in central Bulgaria. Bulgarian Hg I2a most often belongs specifically to the P37.2, M423 branch ("Hg I2a1b"), representing 20% of Bulgarian males.

(E1b1b1a) is presented at levels 19.6% per 880 samples. The presently mostly European V13 (E1b1b1a1b1a) originated in western Asia according to the most plausible scenario and is presented at ~18% among Bulgarian males. According to deeply traced data its internal structure is divided among Z5016, Z5017 and S7461.

(R1a) is identified at 17.6%. It has been revealed that the R1a branch Z282 that is limited to Eastern Europe and separated from their Asian relative ~5000 years ago, makes up 96% of Bulgarian R1a, while the most common branch from China to Anatolia (Z93) makes up the rest 4%. Divided by the largest branches, per 880 samples the levels of the branches of R1a are - M458 - 7.4%, CTS1211(Z280) - 7.1%, Z92(Z280) - 1.9% and Z93 - only 0.7%. According to 100 samples M458 carriers constitute 56% of Bulgarian R1a carriers. Deeply traced data reveals that 90% of the sampled Bulgarian carriers of the M458 clade are carriers of the L1029 micro-clade (R1a1a1b1a1b1), which is 2-3,000 years old, and the L1029 clade of M458 alone accounts for 50% of all Bulgarian R1a per ~250 samples.

(R1b): present in Bulgarians at 10.7%. The Bulgarian internal structure is heterogeneous and 4% of Bulgarian males carry western European subclades. 3% are carriers of the 'Italo-Atlantic' Proto-Celtic branch P312, of which 2% of U152. Another 1 percent belongs to the U106 branch that corresponds with the spread of Germanic peoples. The ancestral L23 and Z2103 branch show a clear relationship with Anatolia and the Near East.

(J-M172) is presented at levels 10.5%. Several subclades within J2 are present: J-M410 (J2a) is represented at 6%, Balkan J-M12 (J2b) at 4% up to 11% in Burgas(prevailing). The prevailing is the L26 deep subclade of J2a, it is furtherly divided into M67, M92, L24 and other clades.

What does this all mean?

The single greatest obstacle for Bulgarian historiography is the very moment of her ethnogenesis. This led to the academic separation between different schools of thought, a schism that is yet to be resolved. There are those who maintain the autochthonous hypothesis, who claim that there was a great diaspora of people from Thrace and Dacia who fled from the new world order of the Roman machine, only to later come back with vengeance and a new political identity - Bulgars (presumably mixed with their new slavic, turkic and gothic friends). There are also those who maintain the foreign invaders hypothesis, insisting that the turkic, iranic or caucasian Bulgars invading the Balkans were simply filling the void of the receding roman power.

The only thing they agree on is the common acknowledgement of the core clans that made up the very first Bulgarian state in recorded history, that of Old Great Bulgaria (a.k.a. Patria Onoguria) - namely the Onogur, Kutigur, Vanandur, Saragur etc. All said clans are from the Oghur family. The Oghurs are widely considered around the whole world to be either proto-turkic peoples, or a folk who shared the same urheimat with turkics, or at least a predecessors for what we today call turkic. Not in Bulgaria though. Because of the ottoman history of Bulgaria many of us will cringe by the notion that we may have turkic blood in our veins, so to get around this fact many of our own researchers have concluded that either the Oghurs were:
A) The easternmost stretch of the Indo-European culture (Afanasevo and BMAC) who "came back" so to say to the european homeland to escape precisely the turkic expansion from Mongolia;
B) Others believe that those were simply the adopted turkic names for inventory and military titles - just like today most maritime vocabulary in even non-english speaking countries will consist of anglo-saxon seafaring terminology. Or industrial machines and tools would have mostly German names (very common in Bulgaria).

What I want to ask the elders of this forum is - how do I know? Where should I look? Any clues and tips on where to start researching?

I've been lurking for a while and I'm very interested in the origin of my people. I just recently discovered population genetics and much is still incomprehensible to me, I hope this thread gains some traction so more informed people can give out some useful knowledge. Big political interests for the past century and a half have never had a problem with corrupting historical facts, as long as they fit the narratives of the geostrategic situations of the day. The study of genetics seems to be mostly driven by amateur researchers from all over the world so I am hopeful that a collective endeavour such as this would be more resistant to corruption and bastardization.
I don't know where to start, so here's some basic data I got from wikipedia:

(I2a) is presented at levels 21.9%. I2a is recorded to be the dominant haplogroup in the former Sofia-city, Sofia, Plovdiv and Varna province between 23-33%, dropping under 10% in central Bulgaria. Bulgarian Hg I2a most often belongs specifically to the P37.2, M423 branch ("Hg I2a1b"), representing 20% of Bulgarian males.

(E1b1b1a) is presented at levels 19.6% per 880 samples. The presently mostly European V13 (E1b1b1a1b1a) originated in western Asia according to the most plausible scenario and is presented at ~18% among Bulgarian males. According to deeply traced data its internal structure is divided among Z5016, Z5017 and S7461.

(R1a) is identified at 17.6%. It has been revealed that the R1a branch Z282 that is limited to Eastern Europe and separated from their Asian relative ~5000 years ago, makes up 96% of Bulgarian R1a, while the most common branch from China to Anatolia (Z93) makes up the rest 4%. Divided by the largest branches, per 880 samples the levels of the branches of R1a are - M458 - 7.4%, CTS1211(Z280) - 7.1%, Z92(Z280) - 1.9% and Z93 - only 0.7%. According to 100 samples M458 carriers constitute 56% of Bulgarian R1a carriers. Deeply traced data reveals that 90% of the sampled Bulgarian carriers of the M458 clade are carriers of the L1029 micro-clade (R1a1a1b1a1b1), which is 2-3,000 years old, and the L1029 clade of M458 alone accounts for 50% of all Bulgarian R1a per ~250 samples.

(R1b): present in Bulgarians at 10.7%. The Bulgarian internal structure is heterogeneous and 4% of Bulgarian males carry western European subclades. 3% are carriers of the 'Italo-Atlantic' Proto-Celtic branch P312, of which 2% of U152. Another 1 percent belongs to the U106 branch that corresponds with the spread of Germanic peoples. The ancestral L23 and Z2103 branch show a clear relationship with Anatolia and the Near East.

(J-M172) is presented at levels 10.5%. Several subclades within J2 are present: J-M410 (J2a) is represented at 6%, Balkan J-M12 (J2b) at 4% up to 11% in Burgas(prevailing). The prevailing is the L26 deep subclade of J2a, it is furtherly divided into M67, M92, L24 and other clades.

What does this all mean?

The single greatest obstacle for Bulgarian historiography is the very moment of her ethnogenesis. This led to the academic separation between different schools of thought, a schism that is yet to be resolved. There are those who maintain the autochthonous hypothesis, who claim that there was a great diaspora of people from Thrace and Dacia who fled from the new world order of the Roman machine, only to later come back with vengeance and a new political identity - Bulgars (presumably mixed with their new slavic, turkic and gothic friends). There are also those who maintain the foreign invaders hypothesis, insisting that the turkic, iranic or caucasian Bulgars invading the Balkans were simply filling the void of the receding roman power.

The only thing they agree on is the common acknowledgement of the core clans that made up the very first Bulgarian state in recorded history, that of Old Great Bulgaria (a.k.a. Patria Onoguria) - namely the Onogur, Kutigur, Vanandur, Saragur etc. All said clans are from the Oghur family. The Oghurs are widely considered around the whole world to be either proto-turkic peoples, or a folk who shared the same urheimat with turkics, or at least a predecessors for what we today call turkic. Not in Bulgaria though. Because of the ottoman history of Bulgaria many of us will cringe by the notion that we may have turkic blood in our veins, so to get around this fact many of our own researchers have concluded that either the Oghurs were:
A) The easternmost stretch of the Indo-European culture (Afanasevo and BMAC) who "came back" so to say to the european homeland to escape precisely the turkic expansion from Mongolia;
B) Others believe that those were simply the adopted turkic names for inventory and military titles - just like today most maritime vocabulary in even non-english speaking countries will consist of anglo-saxon seafaring terminology. Or industrial machines and tools would have mostly German names (very common in Bulgaria).

What I want to ask the elders of this forum is - how do I know? Where should I look? Any clues and tips on where to start researching?

thanks

Do you have information on the Razgrad area , as I want to know aboutRazgrad was built upon the ruins of the Ancient Roman town of Abritus on the banks of the Beli Lom river. Abritus was built on a Thracian settlement of the 4th-5th century BC with unknown name. Several bronze coins of the Thracian king Seuthes III (330-300 BC) and pottery were found,
and the Cris culture
as well as ancient Malak Preslavets sites from nearby

Hi, as some authors hypothesized Bulgar might have had a meaning of "mixed", and Bulgars were quite mixed as it would seem. Of what has been found in Bulgaria thus far, Bulgar is likely Z93>M12280, found in both Bulgarian ftdna project and anonymous study of 808. Also in Razgrad per study there is a higher concentration of G-U1, that seems of Caucasian extraction, then again none of those haplotypes are available (only 250 out of 808 are), but I have seen another Bulgarian U1 from a different study.

Then also there is my own E-Z17107* that is of Cuman origin (found in Hungary in families of Cuman origin), but seems to have ultimately Black or Volga Bulgar roots. Unlike most V13, this branch is found in already several Russians, and actually is not so typical for Bulgaria either. I don't have yet any cousins on Bulgarian project, however there are two anonymous available from Sofia city in this study (one close to me, another related to a Russian). I think it has something to do with the fact that there are only few on Bulgarian project that actually have deeper roots in Sofia city area, it seems in this study they targeted families that have more distant roots there.
Together with my clade, another Z93 clade was member of our clan.:) It's very rare in Balkans, found only once but in Macedonia not in Bulgaria.
Another Bulgarian Z93 YP5271 (in Montana area both in study and project) might have various affiliations, such as Cuman, but also Thracian because this clade is very isolated (and there was also Z93 in BA Bulgaria). Also available from that study is one Z93 "Kyrgiz" haplotype from Plovdiv, likely Cuman.

I am searching for all the traces of Bulgars, but they are very hard to find. My own family one way or the other came from Bulgaria to Lim river area and eventually rose up in the ranks (we also were of high rank in Bulgaria :)) so they actually left plenty of traces because that was only 600 years ago.

In some places in Macedonia and Bulgaria I found individuals in 16th century who bore the name Krum. So the memory of Krum of 700 years earlier seems to have been alive in few areas. Some other Bulgar names are found, and I want to discover descendants of most clans by combining genetic and documentary data.

About Bulgars, they were Oghur, but some (or lots) of them had relatively recent Iranic origin (even 5th century). And overall seemingly most had at some point such origin.

Just now 3 studies about DNA from the old steppe came out, which categorically show that the Scythians and the later Hun and Turkic invaders carried at least some East Asian autosomally and as Y and mito haplogroups.
Those lineages among contemporary Bulgarians discovered until now are at best with residual percentage. Even the R1a-Z93 may be coming from the Bronze age as it was discovered in old Balkan samples.
Also pay attention to the Bulgarian DNA project as the deepest Y haplogroup tests with Big Y show in fact how we are related to other ethnicities at more recent times.
There could not be much concluded from the current geographic placement of Bulgarian samples due to the migrations in the last 200-300 years. Same is with surnames, as they were introduced only about 200 years ago.

eastara Which are those old steppe lineages? I haven't yet gotten to studying what is autosomal dna, however I reckon z-93 is as old as the advent of mass bronze production. But how does the fact that it's "at best residual" among us give us a historical event-narrative of how we got it in the first place - whether it was among the original haplogroups of the invading Bulgars, or was it some Iranic/Turkic folk who rode among Dulo's ranks and settled as a minority along the Danube? Could it be that only the small military and religious elite of the Bulgars were of eastern origin but grew up among proto-Bulgars and sort of became as them - like the Saxe Cobug-Gotha dynasty in recent history - while the whole mass of people could have been native Eastern Europeans? What other academic disciplines can we employ to give us some comparative data? I know of an old hypothesis in archaeology about a so called thraco-cimmerian folk from the Iron Age who could very well have been carriers of z-93 along with pre-european r1b, like the Kurds. Looking at a map of supposed thraco-cimmerian sites around Eastern Europe it seems more likely to believe Herodotus' famous statement of Thracians being the second most numerous peoples after the Hindi. You know this statement could never be possible if we were to consider the Thracian horizon only within the borders of the Roman province of that name in southern Bulgaria - that was merely the capital territory of the only nation-state the Thracians have had in antiquity - that of the Odryssians. Another scenario, God forbid, may be that z-93 came along with Turkish colonists in the Balkans. I know that muslims and christians in the Ottoman empire lived segregated in different settlements, and only met in the market or the tavern, but after the political emancipation of Bulgaria maybe not all Turk families left the land - only most. After all the Sultan's very own dynasty has the z-93 marker if memory serves.

aspurg About the meaning of Bulgar, it may very well be true, linguistics is my weakest point here. But I've had some questions on how heredity of genetic markers works in the first place - does an individual hold within them many haplogroups at a time or just one? Can we see within individuals how many generations ago they received certain markers they hold?

Modern Bulgarians are generally of "Slavic-Thracian" descent.But the "Bulgars" perhaps you are asking about those that established the dinasty,were likely a clan of the Huns.Whatever their genetic or origin was they left little to no trace.
First mention of Bulgars is when they fought on side of Sabinian Magnus magister militum per Illyricum against Theodoric Strabo Goths in the Balkans.

1.So modern Bulgarians are "Slavic-Thracian" descent.
2.The medieval dinasty was established by Hunnic clan,maybe even a succesor of Attila.
3.I won't speculate about name "Bulgars",whether is Turkic or not,maybe the name has nothing to do with the Huns,especially if prior "Bulgars" that established the dinasty were known as Onogundurs according to some authors.

​The modern population in a particular region of Bulgaria and in other Balkan countries is not an accurate comparison mark because it has many internal migrations in these territories, especially during the Ottoman Empire, which occupies the Balkans for about 500 years. There were also large migrations outside the Balkans in the north, northwest and in Russe. These migrations are in tens of thousands of people

In order to be able to comment on the DNA of the ancient Bulgarians and to compare it with that of modern ones, one should examine the old bones of the 7-10th century on the Y chromosome. In order to be able to commemorate the DNA of the ancient Bulgarians and to compare them with the ones of the modern ones, one should examine old bones from the 7-10th century on the chromosome from the territory of Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine and Southern Russia So far, we have such a study of ancient Thracian and Bulgarian-8-10 centuries, but only by mitochondrial DNA